BATTLE OF INDO-CHINA: Counterattack

General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, sent out from Paris a month ago
to put backbone into the crumbling French forces in Indo-China, last
week threw 12,000 of his soldiers into a counterattack against the Reds.
He carefully pointed out that it was not the big offensive he hoped to
launch, but only an operation de degagement to relieve pressure on the
northeastern flank of the French-held Red River delta. Communist probing
attacks have penetrated perilously close to Hanoi, threatened to cut the city
off from the supply port of Haiphong....